[Peace-discuss] Reponse to N-G letter

[David Green]

In response to Lee Melhado’s letter in the N-G today, let me make the following corrections:
   
  First, I did not interrupt a questioner. The speaker had indicated that he would be taking no more questions, after giving long and rambling answers to 4 or 5. He was either on his last or next-to-last point, which was a question on his part: How would we respond if we had 3,600 rockets fired onto our land. At the point, I asked a question (without raising my hand): How would we respond if Canada occupied Montana and established Canadian-only settlements and Canadian-only roads?
   
  I do not recall how I was “gesticulating,” nor could I see whether my face turned red. I was certainly passionate and angry and emphatic, but not abusive in the least, and in addition I was speaking loudly to be heard from the back of the room. I’m not aware that it is a crime to either turn red-faced or gesticulate. After speaking for less than one minute (not “several minutes”) Fred Gottheil interrupted me by shouting (as I later was told) “We’ll bomb you just like we bomb Hamas.” At that point, several other individuals yelled at me (I think including Gottheil’s wife); the infirm gentleman, Ehud Yairi, sitting near me, stood up and shuffled toward me with his cane while loudly and angrily berating me. I spoke for perhaps one more minute after being interrupted, including a response to a factual error that the speaker had made about the percentage of “religious” settlers.
   
  At that point, the speaker intervened in order to not answer my question, but at least to conclude the festivities. He accused me of making up facts.
   
  Afterwards, I walked up to Yairi, getting no closer than five feet. I very angrily said to him, twice, “Don’t ever get in my face again.” At that point a younger man intervened, and physical contact ensued. It’s interesting that Melhado claims that I “attacked” Yairi, while not claiming that the shoving was initiated by me. In fact, it wasn’t, although I do not recall exactly what happened.
   
  Melhado’s assertion that I have a history of disrupting Jewish-sponsored events is nonsense. I disrupted one small conversation at Allen Hall in November 2005, in response to condescending treatment toward me by the speaker, Yossi Klein Halevi, which was a campus-sponsored, not Jewish-sponsored, event. Other than that, there have been no “rants.” The only Jewish-sponsored event that I have attended in years was a talk in February at the Illini Union by Provost William Brustein on "the new anti-semitism," much of which I agreed with, but certainly Fred Gottheil did not. In spite of a very tense and hostile (towards me) environment, and one in which the speaker pandered to the Zionist crowd, I said what I had to say in a completely non-disruptive manner. In that situation, Fred Gottheil had no choice but to behave himself. Not so at Hillel.
   
  Years ago, when Meredith Kruse was director of IDF, she invited a Palestinian student from Iowa to speak, Osama Saba. She told me at the time that prior to the event, she received a call from Gottheil, who was furious with her. When Palestinian rights activist Mazin Qumsiyeh spoke at the YMCA in April 2005 as part of the Wheels of Justice tour, sponsored by AWARE, the directors of the Y received a nasty phone call from Joel Schwitzer, Director of Hillel, complaining that allowing him to speak was doing damage to the relationship that he had developed with the Y. This is the sort of “disruption” that goes on.
   
  Finally, Melhado’s assertion that the speaker, David Makovsky, was “moderate” and “measured” is true only within the limited framework of Zionist discourse. He began his talk with the following summary of over a century of Zionist/Arab history: The Jews came in peace, but the Arabs wanted war. I kid you not. The main point of his talk was that the Palestinians, somehow, were not doing a good job of “economic development.” Gosh, I wonder why? But Makovsky, on behalf of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, had made several trips over to talk to PA leadership, and he was confident that they might be making some progress with corruption. His conclusion was that although he would like to see some settlements go, it was not quite time for that yet. Instead, he would like to see Palestinian life made easier by Israel posting more soldiers at checkpoints and making the process more “efficient.” I kid you not. After all, how would we like 3,600 rockets?
   
  I realize that I acted out of frustration and with poor judgment at this event. I committed no crime and abused nobody by speaking out in the manner I did. I did violate decorum. The response I received had to do with my history and what I said, not how I said it. Out of the 80 or 90 who attended, only 4 or 5 chose to shout me down. Clearly, they were ready to blow, as was I, although not with a personal attack. After all, I do have a history in this community of being disruptive by impolitely pointing out that what we quaintly call “Jewish culture and society” has been placed into the service of ongoing ethnic cleansing. This should be made clear, including in relation to the current flap at UPTV. For these people to be allowed to feel sorry for themselves in any way is absolutely nauseating.
   
  I regret allowing these events to take us off topic.
   
  David
   
   
   
   
   

       
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